Whenever I hear that, I consider the messengers, such as the media with its tacitly required sensationalism, and conservatives desperate to make questionable points.
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That may be, or the benefits just haven’t become obvious, yet. But don’t underestimate that those things haven’t been torn down and shredded or hijacked to benefit billionaires like they have across most of the country.
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Good point.
Jerry Brown did not like the initiative until he liked it. It seems that most voters may have liked it from the start. Estimated averages of “For” votes across parties:
Democrats: 60%
Republicans: 75%
Independents: 65%
Dems’ numbers may have been suppressed by Brown’s (and other Dem politicos?) bias against Prop 13, with possibly an opposite effect on Republicans’ courtesy of Jarvis and others in the GOP.
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This new poll suggests that it’s going to be much harder to do a partisan gerrymander in CA than Newsom seems to think:
https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000198-a50a-d204-a5bb-b56fc79c0000
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/14/california-redistricting-newsom-poll-00508930
The only way to do it is to first convince a majority of voters in the state to pass a ballot initiative undoing the nonpartisan citizen’s redistricting commission and returning the process to politicians. Clearly nearly 100% of Republican voters in CA will be opposed to it, meaning that it could only pass if almost all Democrats along with a large percentage of independents vote in favor. This poll says that right now there’s nowhere near enough support. A large majority of independents are against it, along with about half of Democrats (or more, depending on exactly how the question is asked.) And I don’t think that Newsom has the kind of broad-based popular support that would be needed to change a bunch of minds. We’ll see, I guess.
Seems like a big gamble for Newsom. If he tries and fails, especially if he fails by a large margin, that’s going to cause serious damage to his presidential ambitions. Which as far as I can tell is the only thing he truly cares about.
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Frankly, every Democratic state should be gerrymandering at this point. It’s one thing to stick to your principles when your opponent is, too. But when we’re talking about fascism and all the illegal bullshit the GOP is pulling, every Democratically-held state should be pulling out all the stops to anti-ratfuck Congress in the lead up to 2026. Texas was already gerrymandered. See also a dozen or more Republican-controlled states. Wisconsin regularly votes 60-40 Democratic in their state legislative elections but the seats end up apportioned 40-60 because of gerrymandering.
T**** triggered Texas to redistrict from heavily gerrymandered to ludicrously gerrymandered. Democratic-controlled states need to be proactive instead of reactive on this. Frankly, it’s overdue.
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But in the context of what would need to happen to redistrict California it’s not even clear if they’re really a “Democratic-controlled state.” Less than 50% of registered voters in CA are registered as Democrats. So even if you convinced 100% of them to vote in favor of allowing partisan gerrymandering you’d still need a fair number of independents or 3rd party voters to support it too. The polling indicates that that would be a very difficult task. We’ll see how good Newsom is at selling the idea, I guess. His news conference discussing the plan starts pretty soon.
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If he can only rant incoherently after six days without sleep he will never make it in a statewide race in South Carolina. Nancy Mace can do that all day, every day.
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It’s pretty much her natural state. It takes focus and energy for Nancy Mace to do anything but rant incoherently…
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Yep, in the state that keeps electing Lindsey Graham, people like Mace have an unfair advantage.
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Buttigieg discovers Dems’ 2028 litmus test: Israel
Across the still-forming field, ambitious Democrats are reevaluating their positions and staking out their territory.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/14/2028-democrats-israel-gaza-litmus-test-00508934
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All that cowardly waffling and hedge-betting by members of our supposed opposition party about calling ethnic cleansing and genocide what they are made me nauseous, so I couldn’t finish the article.
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Newsom seems to have couched it very well. In his proposal, it only triggers if Texas hyper-gerrymanders their districts (I don’t call what they are doing “gerrymandering” - Texas is already gerrymandered on racial lines) and it’s only a temporary measure for the 2026 election. It should appeal to most voters, including some Republicans who are sick of the lawlessness of the T**** admin.
And as a reminder (that should be unnecessary) voter registration does not equal voting. What matters is actual voting. And Newsom got 60% of the vote in his last election. By tying this measure to his popularity vs T****’s popularity in California (38% in the election and worse since then), he’s probably made the measure a slam dunk.
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“When southern states resisted school desegregation in the 1950s and ‘60s, they often did so under the banner of local control. Letting the federal government enforce Brown v. Board of Education, they argued, was federal overreach. Local school boards should decide when, and if, to integrate. When cities introduced busing plans to accelerate racial integration, the resistance came wrapped in the same language. This is best handled locally. Translation: let us delay. Let us dilute. Let us decide whether equality is convenient.”
Snip-
If Buttigieg truly believes school boards are the proper venue for resolving questions of dignity and inclusion, then perhaps he should run for one. Let him hold office hours at the local library. Let him pledge to consider all sides. Let him go on record about how children should be treated by adults.
But let us not mistake that for leadership. Because civil rights are not a local issue. They never have been. They are not preferences to be weighed or compromises to be managed. They are realities to secure. And when those rights are under attack, the role of the federal government is not to sit it out.
American history already has volumes about what happens when national figures say this is not our fight. Let’s not add another chapter.
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A gay man apparently seriously suggesting that basic human rights should b e a matter of local voting says he has no grasp of history or how this all plays out.
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Or he’s trying to win over Trump voters by pushing a set of talking points that he thinks will appeal to them.
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Third option, he’s just a fucking bigot.
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Absolutely could be the case. White gay men have long had a problem with pulling up the ladder for other groups in the LGBQT+ community.
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